Hijacked by the Project? Research Which Demands to be Done

This paper discusses how a commitment to follow C. Wright Mills’s (1959) imperative to engage the sociological imagination ethically and critically and in such a way that ‘the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues’ (1970: 11–12) can have the effect of shaping research agendas. I tell two stories from my career about research that I didn’t so much choose to do but which, rather, seemed to choose me to do it

Hijacked by the project? Research which demands to be done

This paper discusses how a commitment to follow C. Wright Mills’s (1959) imperative to engage the sociological imagination ethically and critically and in such a way that ‘the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues’ (1970: 11–12) can have the effect of shaping research agendas. I tell two stories from my career about research that I didn’t so much choose to do but which, rather, seemed to choose me to do it

‘It’s just limboland’ : parental dementia and young people’s life courses

Drawing on narrative interviews from a study exploring the perceptions and experiences of children and young people who have a parent with young onset dementia, this article explores the ways in which the condition impacted their life courses. Dementia is degenerative, terminal and has an unpredictable timeframe that affected young people’s time perspectives, life planning and the ways they conceptualized their lives. This article contributes to the literature around young people’s life courses by illustrating how the concept of liminality can inform understandings of the impact of parental illness on the life course. Using a constructionist perspective we explore the impact of parental dementia on life planning in relation to education/career, mobilities and personal lives. For some, the future was a source of deep anxiety, whilst others were preoccupied with the present and unable to contemplate life beyond their parents’ illness. On the whole, participants felt their lives were in ‘limbo’ until their parents’ death. The data indicate that nuanced approaches towards the life course are required in order to better understand ‘being in limbo’ and to inform support

Too close for comfort?: ethical considerations around safeguarding the emotional and mental wellbeing of researchers using auto/biographical approaches to investigate ‘sensitive’ topics

Auto/biographical narrative research that touches on ‘sensitive’ areas can elicit accounts that researchers may find distressing and threatening to their emotional and psychological health. In this paper we offer a ‘confessional tale’ through which we consider our experiences of investigating a sensitive and painful topic from the perspectives of the Principal Investigator who was intimately acquainted with the field of study because it affected her own family, and of the Research Associate who had no prior experience of the substantive area. We discuss how we dealt with our distress and pain and offer some novel suggestions that other educational researchers using qualitative approaches might adopt to help ensure that their research is ethical in that the wellbeing of researchers, as well as participants, is safeguarded

Community structure of soil fungi in a novel perennial crop monoculture, annual agriculture, and native prairie reconstruction

The use of perennial crop species in agricultural systems may increase ecosystem services and sustainability. Because soil microbial communities play a major role in many processes on which ecosystem services and sustainability depend, characterization of soil community structure in novel perennial crop systems is necessary to understand potential shifts in function and crop responses. Here, we characterized soil fungal community composition at two depths (0–10 and 10–30 cm) in replicated, long-term plots containing one of three different cropping systems: a tilled three-crop rotation of annual crops, a novel perennial crop monoculture (Intermediate wheatgrass, which produces the grain Kernza®), and a native prairie reconstruction. The overall fungal community was similar under the perennial monoculture and native vegetation, but both were distinct from those in annual agriculture. The mutualist and saprotrophic community subsets mirrored differences of the overall community, but pathogens were similar among cropping systems. Depth structured overall communities as well as each functional group subset. These results reinforce studies showing strong effects of tillage and sampling depth on soil community structure and suggest plant species diversity may play a weaker role. Similarities in the overall and functional fungal communities between the perennial monoculture and native vegetation suggest Kernza® cropping systems have the potential to mimic reconstructed natural systems

"It was then that I thought 'whaat? This is not my Dad”: the implications of the ‘still the same person’ narrative for children and young people who have a parent with dementia

This research used auto/biographical interviews to explore the experiences of 19, 8 to 31 year olds who had a parent with dementia. Thematic analysis revealed challenges occasioned by the master narrative that people with dementia are ‘still’ the same person they were prior to the onset of their condition. While this notion is – rightly – at the heart of person-centered care in dementia services, the ‘still’ discourse conflicts with the experiences of young people. Their accounts suggest that the construction of their parent as the same person is not helpful and that, furthermore, expectations that they will behave and feel towards that parent as they did before are a source of distress in what is already a challenging situation. This paper highlights the need to equip young people with support that acknowledges that their parent may well be drastically different to the Mum or Dad they previously ‘knew

Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We tested whether perennial crop yield depended on soil microbes, water availability and crop diversity by testing monocultures and mixtures of three perennial crop species: a novel perennial grain (intermediate wheatgrass—Thinopyrum intermedium-- that produces the perennial grain Kernza®), a potential perennial oilseed crop (Silphium intregrifolium), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Perennial crop performance depended upon both water regime and the presence of living soil, most likely the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the whole soil inoculum from a long term perennial monoculture and from an undisturbed native remnant prairie. Specifically, both Silphium and alfalfa strongly benefited from AM fungi. The presence of native prairie AM fungi had a greater benefit to Silphium in dry pots and alfalfa in wet pots than AM fungi present in the perennial monoculture soil. Kernza did not benefit from AM fungi. Crop mixtures that included Kernza overyielded, but overyielding depended upon inoculation. Specifically, mixtures with Kernza overyielded most strongly in sterile soil as Kernza compensated for poor growth of Silphium and alfalfa. This study identifies the importance of soil biota and the context dependence of benefits of native microbes and the overyielding of mixtures in perennial crops.Perennial Agricultural Project sponsored by the Malone Family Land Preservation FoundationNational Science Foundation (DEB-1556664, DEB- 1738041, OIA 1656006

Temperature dependent transport in suspended graphene

The resistivity of ultra-clean suspended graphene is strongly temperature dependent for 5K<T<240K. At T~5K transport is near-ballistic in a device of ~2um dimension and a mobility ~170,000 cm^2/Vs. At large carrier density, n>0.5*10^11 cm^-2, the resistivity increases with increasing T and is linear above 50K, suggesting carrier scattering from acoustic phonons. At T=240K the mobility is ~120,000 cm^2/Vs, higher than in any known semiconductor. At the charge neutral point we observe a non-universal conductivity that decreases with decreasing T, consistent with a density inhomogeneity <10^8 cm^-2